Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Crude oil is falling $2/bbl. from session highs, on forecasts for another gasoline inventory build, the sixth straight.
- Venezuela has spent more on arms purchases since 2005 than China, Pakistan or Iran.
- American Express(AXP) said profit rose 24%, missing analysts’ estimates, as gas prices declined and holiday spending fell below expectations.
- The American depository receipts of CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela plunged 17% after President Hugo Chavez said the government won’t pay investors the market value for their holding when it seizes the nation’s biggest phone company.
- Fed Bank of Chicago President Michael Moskow, whose inflation warnings have weakened bonds, confirmed he will retire Aug. 31, leaving a fourth high-level opening at the central bank.
- Sun Micro, the world’s third-largest marker of server computers, said it will use Intel Corp.(INTC) microprocessors, ending its exclusive use of Advanced Micro Devices(AMD) parts.
- President Bush has rejected an industry-driven proposal to impose limits on carbon dioxide emissions, and his State of the Union address tomorrow will focus instead on promoting alternatives to fossil fuels, White House spokesman Snow said.

Wall Street Journal:
- Intel Corp.(INTC) may lure Sun Micro(SUNW) as a customer for chips used in servers, dealing a blow to Advanced Micro Devices(AMD).
- Intl. Business Machines(IBM) will sell social-networking software that will work like News Corp.’s(NWS) MySpace yet will focus on business uses.
- Kimberly-Clark Corp.(KMB) is betting that its new Kleenex tissue paper containing disinfectant to fight cold and flu viruses will fend off competition from makers of rival generic and high-tech paper products.
- The SEC is helping to accelerate the introduction of ETFs that invest in international securities.
- Steve Case, the America Online entrepreneur who quit when AOL’s takeover of Time Warner(TWX) disappointed investors, is starting a new Web site to help people manage their health.

USA Today:
- Democratic Senator James Webb, chosen to give his party’s formal response to President Bush’s State of the Union speech, said he favors cutting off funding for Iraq reconstruction and using the money to pay for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.

NY Times:
- Group Danone unit Dannon’s success with Activia, a yogurt with live bacteria marketed as helping with digestive regularity, has led other food makers to develop products with live microbes offering health benefits.
- Quick tests for germs that can cause epidemics such as whooping cough often give false positives and can cause scares like the one last year at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire.

NY Post:
- Sirius Satellite Radio(SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio(XMSR), which attract talent with contracts valued at $29 million for Martha Stewart to $650 million to air Major League Baseball games, may cut spending on content, citing analysts and company officials.

AP:
- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said yesterday that US officials should “go to hell, gringos,” and referred to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as “missy.” During the television address he also said the Venezuelan government won’t pay the market value for CA National Telephones de Venezuela, the country’s largest phone company, which he is planning to nationalize. The Venezuelan stock exchange is plunging another 6% today and has collapsed -28.2% over the last two weeks.
- Retailers CompUSA Inc. and Best Buy Co. plan to open stores a few minutes before midnight Jan. 30 to attract interest in Microsoft’s(MSFT) Windows Vista operating system when it does on sale.

Financial Times:
- NYC is losing ground as the world’s leading center for finance in areas such as IPOs and derivatives trading, where global CEOs say they have shifted business to London because of a more desirable regulatory climate.
- US venture-capital investments rose to $25.8 billion last year, the most since 2001 thanks to deals in health care, consumer, Internet and alternative energy, citing a study by Ernst & Young LLP and DowJones VentureOne.

Iranian Students News Agency:
- Iran will forbid 38 inspectors from the UN nuclear agency from entering the country.